I 





THE MANGANESE DEPOSITS 


OF 


Bahia and Minas, Brazil. 


BY 


PROF. JOHN C. BRANNER, 

STANFORD UNIVERSITY, 
CALIFORNIA. 



Presented to the American Institute of Mining 
Engineers, at its California Meeting, 
September, 1899. 



AUTHOR’S EDITION. 

1 8 9 9. 



A Paper 


































[TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF MINING ENGINEERS. 


The Manganese-Deposits of Bahia and Minas, Brazil. 

/ 

BY PROF. JOHN C. BRANNER, STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA. 

(California Meeting, September, 1899.) 

Within a couple of years I have received many inquiries 
in regard to the manganese-mines of Brazil. These inquiries 
were doubtless directed to me because I had lived and trav¬ 
elled in Brazil for more than eight years, and was therefore 
supposed to be pretty well acquainted with its geology and 
mineral resources. Somewhat to my chagrin, I not only knew 
nothing of manganese-mines in that country, hut I had never 
before heard of the mineral having been found here in quan¬ 
tity, and I did not even know in what State the mines were 
located. 

The present summer found me in Brazil again, trying to 
finish up some of my early geological investigations along the 
northeast coast, and I have used the occasion to find out some¬ 
thing about the manganese-deposits. 

Very little is known of these mines, even in Brazil. While 
at Pernambuco I was told that they were in the distant interior 
of the State of Bahia. In August I reached Bahia, and there 
I found out, concerning the mines and their geology, enough to 
be worth telling for the benefit of those interested in the min¬ 
ing or using- of this mineral. 

Thus far, all the manganese-ore shipped from this State 
has come from two mines, the principal one of which is known 
as the Pedras Pretas mine. This was the first mine opened, is 
the best developed, and was the original discovery; the second 
one is on an adjoining tract, and the general geology and natu¬ 
ral conditions are about the same in both. 

The Pedras Pretas mine is on the Nazareth-Amargosa rail¬ 
way, twenty-six kilometers west of the town of Nazareth, 
which is on tide-water, at the head of navigation, and is 
reached from the city of Bahia by a small side-wheel steamer 
that runs across the bay of Bahia and up the Bio Jaguaripe 


2 TIIE MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF BAHIA AND MINAS, BRAZIL. 

to that place two or three times a week. The trip usually 
takes about six hours. The Amargosa railway, running out of 
Nazareth, passes within half a mile of the mines. 

To my regret, though I started to visit these mines, I did 
not get further than Nazareth. There I met the gentlemen in 
charge of them; and, owing to necessary connections to be 
made with a long-period steamer down the coast, I was com¬ 
pelled to gather what information I could, and to turn back. 
What I have to say here, therefore, regarding the mines them¬ 
selves, was obtained in conversation with Mr. Charles Nack, 
the chief owner of the Pedras Pretas property, and from the 
engineer’s maps, sections, etc. For what I say of the general 
geology, I alone am responsible. 

The geology of the deposit is of special interest; for, so far 
as I now recall, manganese has not before been found in such 
rocks, though there w T as, of course, no reason for supposing it 
might not be expected in them. These rocks are decomposed 
crystalline schists. Mr. Nack speaks of them as decomposed 
gneiss, and the rocks do have a certain resemblance to gneiss. 
Indeed, in many places through this part of the country, it is 
often difficult to say just w T here the gneisses end and the crys¬ 
talline schists begin. The schist-series is exposed at the city 
of Bahia, and is common in all the eastern states of Brazil, 
along the inland margin of the Cretaceous belt that follows the 
coast from Rio Grande do Norte down nearly to Rio de Janeiro. 
These schists, and also the gneisses and granites that often ac¬ 
company them, are in some places exposed as hard rocks, 
while in others they are profoundly decomposed. The railways 
in the States of Pernambuco, Parahyba do Norte and Alagoas 
have many deep cuts through granites, gneisses and crystalline 
schists completely decomposed in place. Some of these cuts 
are twenty meters and more in depth, with not a rock in them 
hard enough to recpiire blasting.* 

It is a peculiarity of these rocks, however, that while they 
are often decomposed to a depth of a hundred meters or more, 
there is no telling where one will come abruptly to the end of 
this decomposition. Here and there, throughout these regions 
of rock-decay, are bare peaks of solid granite, gneiss or schist, 

* See “The Decomposition of Kocks in Brazil,” by J. C. Branner, Ball. Geol. 
Soc. Amer., vii., 255-314. 



THE MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF BAHIA AND MINAS, BRAZIL. 3 

hundreds of meters in height. In the railway-cuts one may 
often see half of the cut in solid rock and the other half in 
clays that have been excavated with pick and shovel alone. 

To come to the geology ot the particular region with which 
we are here concerned:—the city of Bahia stands upon crys¬ 
talline schists cut by eruptive dikes. Immediately west of the 
city is a Cretaceous basin that rests unconformably upon these 
crystalline rocks, and extends westward to within a couple of 
kilometers of the town of Nazareth—a distance, as the parrot 
flies, of about forty-eight kilometers. At Nazareth the schists 
are so decomposed that solid rocks in place are to be seen only 
in the stream-beds, and here and there in the hills. It is in 
these decomposed rocks that the manganese is found at the 
Pedras Pretas mine, lying, according to Mr. Nack, twenty-six 
kilometers further west. Fig. 1 is an ideal section, from Bahia 
westward. 

Fig. 1. 



Ideal Section from Bahia to the Pedras Pretas Manganese-Mines. The under¬ 
lying rocks are crystalline schists, with eruptive dikes, and possibly some granites 
and gneisses. The beds resting upon these are Cretaceous sediments. 


Nothing definite is known with regard to the geologic age of 
these rocks; and the only opinion safe to venture is that they 
are very old. In the State of Sergipe, next north of Bahia, a 
series of rocks, believed to be Paleozoic, rests unconformably 
upon gneisses and schists. This would make the latter older 
than the Carboniferous at least. Some years ago Professor 
0. A. Derby, if I remember correctly (for this is written away 
from my Brazilian library), published in the American Journal 
of Science an article showing that some of these crystalline rocks 
were to be correlated with the Laurentian rocks of Canada, 
basing this view upon the discovery of what was thought by 
Sir William Dawson to be Eozoon canadense* Leaving aside 
the question about Eozoon , I can only say that, so far as gen¬ 
eral resemblance over large rock-areas can be trusted for such 
correlation, I am altogether disposed to agree with Professor 


* Am. Jour. Sci., cxix., 326. 


















Fig. 2. 


4 - r -r"' ;. ............y r. 

• .. . • .*••••. 



Tunnel 
Am.Bk.Note Co.N.}'. 


Section through the Pedras Pretas Manganese-Mines, Bahia, Brazil. 

Scale, 1 inch = 25 feet. 

Fig. 3. 



Section through the Ore-Body and Workings of the Pedras Pretas Mine, Bahia, 

Brazil. 

Scale, 1 inch = 25 feet, nearly. 






































































THE MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF BAHIA AND MINAS, BRAZIL. 5 


Fig 


4. 





'iwssfi 









Open Cut in Surface Clay (Decomposed Rock), Pedras Pretas Manganese-Mine, 

Bahia, Brazil. 


Fig. 5. 



Method of Cleaning Manganese-Ore at tlie Pedras Pretas Mines. The ore is 
dried by lire upon a grate of railway-iron, shown on the right; the clay is then 
knocked off by women, and the ore is dropped into the ore-shoots on the left. 
























6 THE MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF BAHIA AND MINAS, BRAZIL. 

Derby. I dare say Professor Van Hise would be struck by the 
strong resemblance between these Brazilian schists and those 
of the Algonkian of Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc. And it is in¬ 
teresting 1 to remember that these Brazilian manganese-beds are 
thus in rocks of approximately the same geologic age, and cer¬ 
tainly of the same general appearance and characteristics, as the 
great iron-bearing series of the northwestern United States. 

The country in which the manganese-mines are located is 
the comparatively low, hilly coastal region of eastern Brazil. 
The elevation of the water-shed at the mines is 198 meters 
above tide-level, and 70 meters above the track of the Amar- 
gosa railway, near by. This belt of country is covered by dense 
forests. The property of the Pedras Pretas Company consists 
of 295 acres of land, lying between Nago and Mutum creeks, 
and sloping northward towards the former stream. The other 
mine now being opened lies just south of the Pedras Pretas 
property, on the south-facing slope of the same hill. 

The ore is psilomelane, and, in so far as one can judge 
by looking at it, line ore it is. Hundreds of tons of it were 
piled on the wharf at Nazareth when I was there, on the 24tli 
and 25th of August, 1899. Compared with the Arkansas 
and Georgia ores, it appeared to me to be unusually clean, 
though all of it is somewhat stained with red clay. Some of 
the lumps are botryoidal in form, but most of them are angu¬ 
lar, and many are more than two feet in diameter. I am told 
that at the mines it is no uncommon thing to find lumps that 
weigh one and a half tons. The smallest pieces on the ore-piles 
I saw are larger than one’s fist; and these pieces make but a 
small part of the ore on the heaps. 

The Pedras Pretas mine is in soft earth, save where large 
masses of solid ore have been drifted into. Most of the ore 
thus far shipped has come from the great horizontal sheet that 
spreads out, almost or quite on the surface of the ground. 

From the engineer’s maps and sections (Figs. 2 and 3) one 
can see just how much is fact, and how much theory, with re¬ 
gard to the size and shape of the ore-body. It seems evident 
that there is a sheet, bed, or vein, as one may choose to call it, 
of ore, standing at an angle of sixty degrees, and varying in 
thickness from a few decimeters to ten meters. The great sur¬ 
face-deposits I take to be the accumulation from the breaking-up 


THE MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF BAHIA AND MINAS, BRAZIL. 7 

and weathering-out of the bed, and the removal of the clays 
about it*—-just as the Arkansas ores come from the decomposi¬ 
tion of limestones. Most of the ore thus far shipped has come 
from these surface-accumulations. Fig. 4, from a photograph 
said to have been taken in June last, shows one of the open cuts 
in this surface-clay. 

Anyone acquainted with the manganese-mines of Arkansas, 
Georgia and Virginia, will be struck by the general similarity of 
the conditions under which the ores occur in Brazil. The only 
remarkable difference is in the age of the rocks—the Brazilian 
ones being probably much older. 

Fig. 5 shows a method of ore-cleaning that may he useful 
elsewhere. On the right is a pit covered with railway-iron, 
the rails lying close against each other, and sloping gently 
towards the shed. A fire is kept beneath these rails, and all 
the ore that comes from the pits covered with clay is dumped 
upon these hot bars, and left there until the clay dries. It is 
then raked off, and the clay is removed by rapping the ore- 
lumps with hammers. The ore is then dropped on the chutes 
shown on the left. This ore-cleaning is all done by women. 
When the ore comes from the mines clean, the cars are 
dumped immediately into the chutes. 

The company owns a tramway over which its ore is hauled 
to the Uazareth-Amargosa railway, by which it is taken to the 
wharf at Uazareth. At this place it is loaded on small sailing- 
vessels and sent to Itaparica, a small town on the Bay of Bahia, 
where it is put on board sailing-vessels for Europe or the 
United States. 

The government-charges here are quite reasonable—a little 
more than one milreis a ton on the exported ore. At the 
present rate of exchange, this is about fifteen cents of our 
American money. I am told that sailing-vessels charge ten 
shillings a ton to carry the ore from Bahia to Philadelphia. 

As reported to me by the mine-owners, the total cost (to 
them) of this manganese, laid down in Philadelphia, is four dol¬ 
lars and ninety-five cents a ton. This includes the cost of mine 
management. From my own knowledge of this country, and 

* I have often found these crystalline schists to have a pretty uniform dip and 
strike over large areas through eastern Brazil. In the interior of the State of 
Pernambuco I found that this uniformity was due to repeated parallel faults. 




8 THE MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF BAHIA AND MINAS, BRAZIL. 

of the price and character of labor, I am disposed to think 
this a thoroughly conservative estimate. 

The proximity of the tine sea-port and large city of Bahia 
makes it possible for those living at these mines to have many 
of the luxuries of life, while the many steamer-lines running to 
this port from Europe (and one from the United States) keep them 
from feeling that they are very far from the rest of the world. 
On the whole, the mines are more favorably located than any 
others with which I am acquainted in Brazil. Labor is very 
cheap, and, if properly treated, is fairly good. There are a large 
saw-mill and many shops at the town of Nazareth. 

As for the prospects of finding other good manganese-de¬ 
posits, it would be a mere waste of words to speak, save in 
the most general terms. The geology of the country is but 
imperfectly known at the best, and nothing at all is known 
of the precise distribution of the series of rocks in which 
these particular deposits are found. The federal government 
has no lands of its own. When the republic was established, 
it was provided in the Constitution that all federal lands should 
be turned over to the States in which the lands lay. There is, 
therefore, no incentive for the federal government to maintain 
a geological survey, since such a survey would be for the sole 
direct benefit of the individual states. The States themselves, 
with the exceptions of Sao Paulo and Minas Geraes, have never 
undertaken such work; and the Minas Geraes survey has al¬ 
ready been stopped, before any geological work proper had 
been undertaken. I regret to say that there seems but little 
likelihood of the States undertaking surveys. If any one 
wants to know where the crystalline schists occur in the 
great State of Bahia, in order to know where to seek manga¬ 
nese, he need not search the State reports for such information; 
he can either gather the information directly in the field, or he 
can leave the matter alone. But such preliminary field-work 
is quite beyond the powers of private organizations. So he 
leaves it alone; and whatever new discoveries are made must 
be made by some happy chance. 

Postscript. 

After the above was written (at Bahia, in August, 1899), I 
went to Rio de Janeiro, with the expectation of visiting the 


THE MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF BAHIA AND MINAS, BRAZIL. 9 


manganese-mines near Ouro Preto, in the State of Minas 
Geraes. I found, however, that a competent English mining 
engineer had already spent some time studying them, and that 
his results were shortly to be published in England; and I 
therefore abandoned my plans. The Minas Geraes manganese- 
deposits are near the Miguel Burnier Station on the Ouro 
Preto branch of the Central railway (496 kilometers north of 
Rio), and at Queluz on the main line (463 kilometers from 
Rio). From what Professor Derby and others who have seen 
the mines tell me they are all open cuts in rocks decomposed 
in place. With the general geology of the region in which 
these mines are located I am already acquainted. It is very 
much like that of the Bahia manganese-mines. 

Dr. Antonio Olyntho dos Santos Pires, Professor in the 
Escola de Minas at Ouro Preto, and one of the leading mining 
engineers of Brazil, has kindly furnished me the following in¬ 
formation regarding the Minas manganese-deposits. His letter 
is dated October 22, 1899. 

11 About five years ago the manganese-mines of the State of Minas began to at¬ 
tract attention, though in many places these deposits were already well known. 
In the zone between Miguel Burnier and Itabira, on the Central do Brazil rail¬ 
way, two iron-furnaces had been started alongside of magnificent iron-deposits ; 
but the difficulty of getting charcoal for fuel caused the directors of one of these 
furnaces to turn their attention to the manganese, and to attempt its exportation. 
The result of this attempt was favorable ; and from this began the regular mining 
and shipping of this mineral. 

“ At present there are three companies engaged in this work, besides the small 
organizations that are formed and disappear from time to time. These companies 
operate in the zone between Lafayette and Burnier stations, along the branch rail¬ 
way running from Burnier to Ouro Preto, and lately in the vicinity of the last- 
named city. It is only within the last two years that these mining operations 
have become systematized. Of the geology of these deposits no careful studies 
have been made. The region is very mountainous, and has been much disturbed, 
and only a thorough and careful examination can warrant hypotheses—which, 
thus far, no one has ventured to formulate. The order of the beds, as shown in 
most of the cuts along the Ouro Preto branch of the railway, is about as follows : 

1. Limestone. 

2. Ferruginous quartzite or itabirite. 

3. Clays. 

4. Compact itabirite. 

5. Manganese. 

6. Jacutinga , or friable itabirite. 

7. Clays. 

8. Stratified crystalline rocks, with limonite and impure manganese oxides. 

9. Clay-shales. 

10. Canga , or ferruginous conglomerate. 


10 THE MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF BAHIA AND MINAS, BRAZIL. 


11 The kinds of manganese most frequently found are manganile (Mn 2 0 3 , H 2 0) and 
pyrolnsite (Mn0 2 ), and less frequently the other oxides. The itabirite with which 
the manganese is generally interbedded is composed of hematite and layers of 
quartz. It is sometimes so compact that it is called ironstone ; and again it is 
friable, when it is known as jacutinga. 

“I give herewith analyses showing the percentage of metallic manganese, and 
of the principal impurities contained in the ore. These analyses are copied from 
the register of analyses of the School of Mines, where we examine all the ores 
presented. 

“ The exportation of manganese from the State of Minas began (by way of the 
port of Rio de Janeiro), upon a very small scale, in 1894. In subsequent years 


it was as follows : 

Exports of Manganese from Minas 

(via Rio de Janeiro). 

1895,. 

Metric Tons.* 
6,765 

1896, 

• ••••••• 

13,020 

1897, 

........ 

17,967 

1898, 

• ••••• • • 

29,630 

1899 (to Sept.), 

. 

60,107 

“ This exportation was 

through the Miguel Burnier station, 

at kilometer 498 


on the Central do Brazil railway. There has also been some manganese exported 
from Lafayette station (kilometer 462) and from Ouro Preto (kilometer 540); but 
only during the present year has it become regular. To the figures given above 
there should therefore be added at least 15 or 20 per cent., to show the total ex¬ 
portation of manganese from the State of Minas. 

“These figures show that mining operations are increasing; and the work 
planned and development now under way lead to the belief that the output for next 
year will be much larger than ever. Moreover, other districts, such as that of 
Sahara and Bello Horizonte, along the line of the Central railway, are proving to 
contain deposits of importance which must certainly be developed shortly.” 

The following are the analyses of manganese-ore, made at 
the School of Mines at Onro Preto, and kindly furnished by 
Dr. Antonio Olyntho. 

I. 

Sample from Kilometer 499, Central do Brazil Railway. 


Per cent. 

Loss on ignition,.' . . 15.200 

Insoluble in HC1, ........ 1.560 

Sesquioxide of iron, and alumina, ..... 4.600 

Oxide of manganese, ....... 76.200 

Baryta,.1.840 

Phosphoric acid,.0.019 


Total,.99.419 

Metallic manganese,.. . 54.96 


* The metric ton is 2204 lbs. avoirdupois. 
















THE MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF BAHIA AND MINAS, BRAZIL. 11 


II. 

Sample from Kilometer 500, Central do Brazil Railway. 

Per cent. 

Loss on ignition,.14.750 

Insoluble in HC1, ........ 0.700 

Sesquioxide of iron, ....... 4.000 

Alumina,.2.000 

Lime and magnesia, ....... 0.000 

Oxide of manganese, ....... 75.600 

Phosphoric acid, ..... ... 0.051 

Baryta,.2.300 


Total,. 99.401 

Metallic manganese, . . . . . . . 50.46 

III. 

Sample from Kilometer 503, Central do Brazil Railway. 

Per cent. 

Loss on ignition, ..13.500 

Insoluble in HC1, ........ 1.000 

Sesquioxide of iron and manganese, .... 5.700 

Oxide of manganese, ....... 70.000 

Phosphoric acid, .. 0.032 

Baryta, .......... 8.800 

Lime and magnesia, ....... trace 


Total, ......... 99.032 

Metallic manganese, . . . . . . . 50.44 

IV. 

Sample from Rabira , Kilometer 524, Central do Brazil Railway. 

Per cent. 

Hygroscopic moisture, ....... 1.15 

Insoluble in HC1, . . . . . . . . 13.84 

Metallic manganese, . . . . . . . 31.75 

V. 

Sample from Vigia , Kilometer 500, between Burnier and Rabira 

Stations. 

Per cent. 

Insoluble in HC1, ........ 0.65 

Metallic manganese, . . . . . . . 55.40 

VI. 

Sample from Queluz , Lafayette Station , Kilometer 463, Central do 

Brazil Railway. 

i. ii. 

Per cent. Per cent. 

Loss on ignition, . . . . . .14.0 18.7 

Insoluble in HC1, . .... 52.0 5.0 

Metallic manganese, . . . . .29.8 36.7 




















12 THE MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF BAHIA AND MINAS, BRAZIL. 


VII. 


Sample from Rodrigo 

Silva, Kilometer 

521, Central 

do Brazil 


Railway. 




i. 

ii. 

hi. 


Per cent. 

Per cent. 

Per cent. 

Insoluble in HC1, 

. . . 3.5 

0.3 

0.40 

Metallic manganese, 

. 60.1 

62.0 

60.90 

Phosphorus, 

0.154 




VIII. 



Sample from 

Rodrigo Silva , another exposure. 

* 



Per cent. 

Insoluble in HC1, 

• • • • 

• • • 

1.65 

Oxide of manganese, 

• ♦ • • 

*• 

69.00 

Phosphoric acid, 

• • • • 

• 

0.160 

Corresponding to 




Metallic manganese, 

• • • • 

• 

49.70 

Phosphorus, 

• • • • 

. 

0.07 


IX. 

Sample from Hargreaves , Kilometer 51 5, Central do Brazil Bailway. 

Per cent. 


Insoluble in HC1, ........ 1.8 

Oxide of manganese, .... ... 71.5 

Oxide of Iron and alumina, . . . . . . 14.6 

Corresponding to 

Metallic manganese, ..... . 51.4 


X. 

Sample from Hargreaves , Capdo Deposit. 



I. 

II. 


Per cent. 

Per cent. 

Insoluble in HC1, .... 

0.4 

0.3 

Alumina, ..... 

12.5 


Metallic manganese, 

48.96 

57.4 

Phosphoric acid, .... 

0.096 


XI. 

Sample from Saramenha , 

Kilometer 540. 

I. 

Per cent. 

Loss on ignition, .... 

* • • • 

18.50 

Insoluble in HC1, .... 

• • • 

0.80 

Alumina, ..... 

• • • • 

0.90 

Sesquioxide of iron, .... 

• • • • 

11.16 

Oxide of manganese, 

• • • • 

67.60 

Baryta, ...... 

• • • « 

1.18 

Phosphoric acid, .... 

e • « « 

trace 


Total, 


100.14 









THE MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF BAHIA AND MINAS, BRAZIL. 13 

XII. 

Sample from Saramentia , another deposit. 

Per cent. 

Insoluble in HC1,.0.60 

Metallic manganese,.60.90 

XIII. 

Sample from Tres Cruzes , Kilometer 530. 

Per cent. 

Insoluble in HC1, . . ..1.50 

Metallic manganese,.. . . 40.50 

XIV. 

Sample from Morro do Cruzeiro Ouro Preto , Kilometer 540. 

Per cent. 

Insoluble in HC1, ........ 0.7 

Oxide of manganese, . ... . . . . 65.0 

Sesquioxide of iron and alumina, ..... 20.0 

Corresponding to 

Metallic manganese, ........ 46.8 

Dr. Olyntlio continues: 

“ The above-mentioned deposits are all upon the Ouro Preto branch of the 
Central do Brazil railway. Besides these there are others, not only along the 
line itself, but also at short distances from it. The Gandarella basin is one of the 
most interesting of this district.’’ 

XV. 

Sample from Gandarella , 20 km. from the Railway at Kilometer 551. 

Per cent. 

Insoluble in HC1, ........ 2.0 

Metallic manganese, . . . . . . . . 50.7 

In the vicinity of Bello Horizonte,, the new capital of the 
State of Minas, 600 kilometers from Bio de Janeiro, beds of 
crreat thickness have been discovered. 

O 


XVI. 

Samples from Acaba Mundo , S. E. of Bello Horizonte. 


i. n. 

Per cent. Per cent. 

Insoluble in HC1, . . . . . 6.5 1.00 

Metallic manganese,. 47.58 56.16 

XVII. 


Samples from Taguaral E. of Bello Horizonte. 


i. ii. 

Per cent. Per cent. 

Insoluble in HC1, ..... 0.1 0.30 

Metallic manganese, ..... 60.09 60.08 

Phosphorus, ...... 0.022 



14 THE MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF BAHIA AND MINAS, BRAZIL. 


XVIII. 


Samples from Corumba , 

State of 

Motto Gr 

OSSO. 


i. 

ii. 

III. 


Per cent. 

Per cent. 

Per cent. 

Loss on ignition, 

9.85 

9.50 

8.85 

Insoluble in HC1, 

1.86 

0.65 

0.60 

Sesquioxide of iron and alumina, 

14.40 

13.50 

12.50 

Phosphoric acid, 

0.126 

0.192 

0.126 

Metallic manganese, 

47.52 

50.80 

51.50 


In 1898 a monograph upon Brazilian manganese-ores, en¬ 
titled 0 Manganez no Brazil , by M. Ar-Rojaclo Ribeiro Lisboa, 
was published at Rio de Janeiro, pamphlet, 48 pp., and also, 
June 19, in the Jornal do Commercio of that city. This mono¬ 
graph gives analyses of the ore, together with the cost of 
mining and transportation, from twelve different localities. 
Being, unfortunately, unable at this time to quote these de¬ 
tailed statements, I substitute (what may be of greater value, 
as testimony from an entirely impartial source) a statement 
kindly furnished by Ledoux & Co., of Xew York City, who 
sample and assay the larger part of all shipments to the United 
States, giving the average of 40,000 tons of Brazil manganese- 
ore, as follows: 

Per cent. 


Moisture, . . . . . . . . . .7.60 

Manganese, . . . . . . . . . .54.08 

Phosphorus, ... . . ... . . 0.03 

Silica, ........... 1.05 

Iron,.0.90 


In these shipments the different mines are not specified. 

While I am speaking of mining in Brazil, I may use the oc¬ 
casion to answer certain questions often put to me by hopeful 
young miners, prospectors, metallurgists and mining engineers, 
with regard to the advisability of going to that country. 

First and foremost, one should not go there at all unless 
he goes under a satisfactory contract. That is not the country 
for ventures. 

Don’t go into the Amazon valley for'any considerable period 
—contract or no contract. 

The language of the country is not Spanish, hut Portuguese; 
and bad Spanish is not good Portuguese. One is utterly help¬ 
less there, unless he understands and speaks the language with 











THE MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF BAIIIA AND MINAS, BRAZIL. 15 

some sort of facility. French is of some use in three or four 
of the largest coast-cities, but up-country it is as useless as 
Choctaw. 

The mining regions of Minas Geraes and the high interior 

O O O 

generally are healthful for people of temperate habits. Beer¬ 
drinking is not temperance there. New-comers should not 
arrive in the months of February, March, April or May. In 
those months, yellow fever is generally at its worst. 








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